Iranian Blogs & 2005 · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Iranian blogs continue its dynamic existence in 2005 and Persian language has become second most used language (After English Persian ties with French) in Blogosphere. Here we look at some events in Iranian Blog city in 2005 which have importance in our eyes:
1-Blogger in Jail: Saminnejad, an Iran based blogger, was accused of jeopardizing national security and insulting Leader.  (Read GV) Un fortunately he is still in prison in Iran. Don't forget him!
2-Filtering & Hacking: Iranian blogs & sites have been become victims of official filtering and apparently non official hacking. Mr.Moin a reformist presidential candidate, writes that twice his blog was hacked. According to him they ( government ) are too shy to filter it directly”.
3-More Politicians become bloggers: Tajzadeh, a reformist activist , Moin , a former Minister and reformist presidential candidate, several other reformist politicians have started to write their ideas and meetings in their blogs. Recently some friends of Mr.Khatami offered him a blog and encouraged him to start blogging.
His first message received more than 1500 comments!. Another good sign that Iranian still take care of blogs and Khatami!
4-One Event blogs: Some blogs have been created to cover just one topic or event. Free Ganji is one of them which reports all news, reports about jailed writer & journalist (Read GV). New blog in this category is Throat full of blades which covers AirPlane ‘s crash ( Read GV).
5-Zannevesht, an Iranian journalist, won Deutsche Welle's prize for best blog in Persian: It was first time that Persian blogs participated in this competition.
6-Beyond Politics: Several famous writers such as Maroufi, a Germany based blogger, started to publish their stories on their blogs. There are all free of charge and can be downloaded.
I asked a couple of active bloggers to share their idea about Iranian Blogcity in 2005. Shahram Kholdi, a UK based blogger, send me an email about 2005 & blogs. Here is a summary of what he has to share:
In 2005, the Iranian blogosphere became a public space for political discourse, activism, and collective action on a level completely set apart from the previous years. Several political events became the centrepiece of such activities: the continuing torture and tormenting of Akbar Ganji, the Iranian journalist, the surge in the persecution of student activists and webloggers, the nuclear talks between Iran and the EU, and last but not least, the Iranian Presidential Election.
Even though it still remains to be seen to what extent that Iranian weblogs have a “direct” impact on these events inside Iran, one fact is clear: Iranian weblogs have proven to be a critical tool for collective action and citizen empowerment. Used by people of different social, cultural, religious, and political orientation, Iranian weblogs proved vital to overcome the artificial international borders as a medium of connecting the Iranian youth inside Iran to “Diaspora” Iranian youth more directly. The sense of a more inclusive and world-wide connected Iranian community through the blogosphere was barely undermined by the filtering actions of the Islamic Republic government and their restriction of access to the worldwide web in different ways. However, poverty and the economic digital divide in Iran remain important impediments for many other voices to be heard from within a country whose ethnic, historical, and communal vernacular is much more diverse and is yet to be heard.
One thing is sure 2005 was a great year for Iranian blogs despite all pressure, filtering and censorship. I wish the best for all bloggers Iranian or not a fruitful 2006 year.